1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the field of entertainment systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to the rendering of commercials interposed in, entertainment programming.
2. Background
Commercials have long been an integral part of entertainment programming. From the major television networks to the local radio station operators, they all rely on advertisers for their revenues. As a result, the large majority of entertainment programming, whether it is television or radio, whether it is news, sports, soap operas or talk shows, they are all interposed with commercials at selective breakpoints of the programs. Even for video tapes, more and more commercials are placed at the beginning as well as the end of the feature presentations. Under the prior art, subject to the users changing channel or programming source, the commercials are rendered by the receiving entertainment systems as received. This conventional “as is” approach to commercial rendering suffers from at least one disadvantage in that all viewers/listeners of an entertainment program see/hear the same commercial, which often is of interest to only a small percentage of the viewers/listeners of the entertainment program (even though they had the common interest of watching/listening to the same entertainment program).
A recent trend in the electronics and computer industry is the convergence of computer systems and more traditional entertainment system components. Accompanying this convergence is the expansion in the types and the capacities of the transport media (i.e., the mechanism or pipe through which the entertainment programs are delivered to the entertainment systems), as well as the local abilities in processing and rendering the entertainment programs and their associated information. While analog broadcasts and analog cable were once the standard transport media for television and audio programming, high capacity digital cable and digital satellite systems are becoming more and more commonplace. Other transport media, such as digital broadcasts, are starting to appear as options for viewers/listeners. Additionally, other “local” sources (e.g., video cassette recorders or CD players) can also supply entertainment programming to the user. As a result, increasing number of entertainment programs are available to the viewers/listeners from increasing number of different channels/sources, making it even more tempting for the viewers/listeners with little interest in the commercials to at least skip to other programming while the commercials are being rendered.
Obviously, this is of concerns to the advertisers, but it is a concern to the program providers/broadcasters also. As it is well established, often times, the viewers/listeners will stay with the other program. The conventional approach to increasing the likelihood of the viewers/listeners staying tuned to watch/listen to the commercials is to increase the quality of the commercials. While this approach has proven to be somewhat effective, it has driven up the cost of the commercials, and in turn the cost of advertising. With the increased in cost, the advertisers are expecting a higher return to their investment.
Therefore, a need exist to improve the effectiveness of commercial rendering.